Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Parents Demand School Allow Son in Girls Restroom

Parents of 6-year-old Coy Mathis of Fountain, Colorado have pulled their sexually confused son, whom the parents say is a transgendered girl, from the local public school until the school agrees to celebrate the child's mental illness (exacerbated by the parents' behavior) and treat him as a girl in every way.

In December, the Fountain-Fort Carson School District informed Coy's parents that Coy would be barred from using the girls' restrooms at Eagleside Elementary in Fountain after winter break.

She could instead use the boys' bathroom, gender-neutral faculty bathrooms or the nurse's bathroom, the district said.

In making the decision, the district "took into account not only Coy but other students in the building, their parents, and the future impact a boy with male genitals using a girls' bathroom would have as Coy grew older," attorney W. Kelly Dude said.

"However, I'm certain you can appreciate that as Coy grows older and his male genitals develop along with the rest of his body, at least some parents and students are likely to become uncomfortable with his continued use of the girls' restroom."

The parents of a transgender 6-year-old have filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division . . .

Wm. Kelly Dude, the lawyer for Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8, said there are no Colorado cases requiring public schools to permit transgender students to use restrooms of the gender with which they identify.

Dude argued that the district is in compliance with the state Anti-Discrimination Act because "Coy attends class as all other students, is permitted to wear girls' clothes and is referred to as the parents have requested," and was allowed access to single-user restrooms used by employees or gender-neutral restrooms in the school's health room.

Coy's parents, Kathryn and Jeremy, are home-schooling her until the issue is resolved.

This is the first of it's kind ruling in the country regarding the rights of transgender students. No court, no tribunal has ever said what the Colorado Division of Civil Rights has said today which is that trangendered students must be treated equally. They specifically referenced the outmoded concept of separate but equal and told us that separate but equal is very rarely equal and it is certainly not equal in Coy's case.

School policies toward transgender students vary across the United States.

In New York, for example, the law says students can't be discriminated against on the basis of their gender identity.

But in Maine, a court ruled in November that a school district did not violate a transgender student's rights when she was told she couldn't use the girls' bathroom.